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Shadow and Shade

"I stayed up all night finishing Shadow and Shade, a fascinating fantasy world of magic, family, and what happens when the two collide. A tough and enchanting tale that will have you listening to the forest and talking to the wolves. I can't wait to see what Gerrard writes next!" Rebecca Cantrell, New York Times bestselling author of The World Beneath

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The Mighty Yardstick of Saint Bludgeon

Patty tried to remember every rallying speech from every movie she ever saw. Nothing came to her. Some parts of her brain still hadn’t woken up from the deep freeze. Patty winged it.

“We’ve fought long and hard for this day. Now our enemy has come to our door. It’s time to stand up. Today, we’re going to look them in the eye, kick them in the balls, knock them on their ass, and send those zombie sons of bitches back to Hell where they belong!”

The crowd cheered. Wise-ass Gus asked, “Why would we look them in the eye or kick them in the balls? Half of them don’t have either one.”

Patty slapped him. “Don’t interrupt. And thanks for volunteering to lead the charge with me!” Patty handed him an axe and a hammer. Two sisters from the Order of Saint Bludgeon started putting armor on him.

Patty hefted her own weapon: a sword notched to look like a yardstick, a weapon she’d wielded to many students’ dismay in her past life. She gestured at Gus with it. “Some of you don’t like me…”

“You’ve got that right,” a heckler called. Two more sisters started suiting him up for Patty’s Brigade.

“Well, I’ll be honest. I haven’t been around such a sorry bunch of complainers since the twenty years that I taught the sixth grade. But like them, you’re a bunch of survivors. I used to tell them, ‘If you can make it past me, you can make it past anything!'” She looked over the multitude. “I see doctors. Nurses. Cops. Business people. To all you people who hate my guts, I’ll say this: tomorrow, you’ll still hate my guts and you’ll have a chance to tell me all about it! I’m going to stand up here and let every last one of you speak your mind and I won’t say a word. Is that something worth living for?”

The crowd cheered louder.

“Is that something worth fighting for?”

Crowbars, axes and chain saws waved in the air.

“Is that something worth kicking zombie ass for?”

The crowd surged. Patty would have crowd-surfed on them if the blades wouldn’t have sliced her into shredded steak.

“For God! For glory! For football!” she roared. Patty’s eyes bugged out. Where the hell did that come from? She was afraid she’d lose the crowd, but instead they went berserk.

She ran for the gates. The crowd charged right behind her. Patty’s habit flapped in the wind like a blue cape of doom.